Category Archives: Words Words Words

Sleeping On It

Well, sleeping on it does work! I wrote last night’s post on-line (a no-no I usually avoid by composing in Word and copying it over) and my computer froze as soon as I hit the “Publish” button. Argh! Was it lost? Was it trapped in cyber-space, awaiting my secret Jedi powers to free it?

After half an hour of trying to un-freeze the unit I gave up. If it was gone, it was supposed to be gone, and my earlier post was to stand as to my musings on Eric’s sudden passing. I checked this morning, and voila! My post!

Orchestra tonight – I’m so anti-Bizet that I pulled out my CD and my music this weekend and listened to it over and over, then played the opening bit. Or, I tried. Then I played with the Schubert symphony for a while. Much more satisfying. This marks the first time I’ve touched my cello between rehearsals in, um, five months. Gulp.

Woke up this morning to a delightful bit of Renaissance lute music from a CD called “Lute Music for Witches and Alchemists”. Now I have to own it. Hey, I’m supposed to be enjoying life more consciously now, right?

On Funerals

I have not felt this drained in a long time. I’ve given up trying to work; I’m pretty useless tonight.

Eric’s memorial service was funny, touching, and in general a celebration of a happy man who lived life to its utmost. By far the most enjoyable funeral-type service I’ve ever experienced, it was a chance to share with others how much one individual can have touched your life, while mourning the fact that you’ll not have the opportunity to share time with him again. My husband said that he wants his service to be much the same – but with much alcohol, and dancing too. I’ve never been a fan of the weepy, heart-wringing kind of funeral – what good does that do? – nor of the startling “repent ye sinners and turn to GOD!” genre, so I must say that I’m right with him on this one. Celebration of life is the key, even while we recognise that our lives will never be the same.

All through the afternoon, I looked at each of my friends, and saw individuals with whom I enjoy spending time, with whom I share interests, in-jokes, hobbies. When I said hello or good-bye, I held them all a little tighter, a little longer. Life’s precious, damn it. Why don’t we see that more often?

What is it that prevents us from understanding that at a deeper level? Or, perhaps more importantly, at a superficial, always-on-my-mind level? Why do we let ourselves become burdened, stressed, concerned with what’s wrong in our lives? What does it – any of it – matter in the end? What it all comes down to is you, your friends, your family; your level of peace, the love you feel: what’s right on your life. This afternoon, someone said that one of Eric’s philosophies was, “You can never be too kind”. It’s true. That means reaching out and telling people that you care. It means hugging those close to you. More, it means accepting the hugs from others, their kind words. It means touching others, and making that connection.

After a tough time in my own life, I’d begun looking at my friends and family again and realising how much they mean to me, every one of them. The loss of Eric just highlights that importance. Death points out to us all that we are still living, as difficult as it may be in the wake of such a blow. Not living life to its fullest is turning your back on the simplest, yet most elegantly profound, message the gods have sent to us.

On The Contrariness Of Cats and Oscars

About a month ago we inherited a never-used sofa bed and matching recliner chair. Nice, neutral in style and colour, comfy, and miles more attractive and less uncomfortable than the tiny 30 year old sofa bed we’d picked up at a garage sale a few years ago. That sofa bed was being used as a scratching post by our three fluffy hellions, so we’ve been keeping an eye on them when they’re in the living room with the new set. If we’re in the apartment and hear that tell-tale “skrr skrr skrr pop” we yell, clap our hands sharply, or smack the offending puss on the rear (depends how persistent they’re being). Well, you can’t watch them all day, so when we noticed a thread or two hanging off the arm rest of the sofa we decided to cut further damage off at the pass.

We brought home a board wrapped in heavy jute rope and screwed it to one of our doorframes.

All three cats ignored it.

I rubbed some catnip on it. They rolled around on the floor in front of it on the bits that fell off.

One by one, I picked each of them up and carried them over to the scratching board, put them down, picked up their front paws and made little scratchy movements against the rope. They pulled their paws out of my hands and gave me injured looks.

I gave up. Another terrific idea, down the drain.

A couple of days ago, I was in the bedroom and heard the “skrr skrr skrr pop” sound. I yelled; the sound didn’t stop. I walked into the living room ready to dish out hell, and there was Maggie, on her back legs, back curved, her front claws locked in the rope, looking at me like I was an idiot human who was contradicting myself again.

Ahem.

She’s the only one who uses it, though. The other two haven’t figured it out yet. Either that, or they’ve tried and she’s defended it, having decided it’s her personal scratchy spot. My money’s on Maggie telling the other two that it’s really better for them if they use the sofa to sharpen their claws, and she’s no longer using it to give them more opportunities.

Oscar Review:

I haven’t watched the Oscars in years, namely because I’ve been so disinterested in what the world of film has had to offer. Last night we watched the back-to-back Enterprise episodes, then tuned in to the Academy Awards in time to watch Sidney Poitier receive his honorary Oscar. I missed all the LoTR awards, but by checking out the web site I’m very pleased to see that Howard Shore got a statue for his incredible score which rarely leaves slot no. 3 in our CD tray. I did have the fortune to see Randy Newman win for Best Song, however, which was long overdue.

Overall, I’m pleasantly surprised to see films like Gosford Park and A Beautiful Mind be honoured. These are films which I was excited about when I heard they were being released, then got swamped by the general raving hullabaloo once they came out and lost any desire to see them. Guess I’ll be fixing the oversight soon. Maybe I’ll rent Moulin Rouge so I can finally see that as well. Oh, and why not see LoTR again while I’m at it.

Movies I’m looking forward to this year: Possession (scheduled for July 2002, based on the novel by A.S. Byatt, which is one of my Desert Island books and one of the three focal points of my M.A. thesis – although apparently this film ruins the whole turning point of the novel by making the scholars American!), The Importance Of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde rides again!), Star Wars: Episode Two (I refuse to call it by the lame, lame title – we’ll all call it Ep2 anyway), Spider-Man, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (a title which can’t be changed for American audiences, thanks the gods), and of course, The Two Towers. Most of which are likely to be ignored this time next year.

Missing The Point (But They Were Delicious)

So it was Ostara a couple of days ago – Vernal Equinox to most of you. Spring arrived in Montreal and brought another ten to fifteen centimeters of snow with it. This is funny because all winter we had practically no accumulation. In the past week we’ve seen about five to six times more accumulation than we have since winter began. Mother Nature – she’s so wacky.

Anyway, one of the things about the Vernal Equinox is that it’s one of the two times per year that everything about the Earth is so balanced (axis, gravity, blah blah blah), you can stand a raw egg in the shell on its end.

At work, we didn’t have any real eggs, but we still wanted to experiment. So we tried using Easter Creme Eggs. They didn’t work very well.

So we ate them.

There’s always the Autumnal Equinox…

On Sudden Death

What is it about hearing about someone’s death?

I think it’s the finality. It’s done; it’s over.

I’ve lived through two sudden deaths of people I knew – one a very close friend, one a gaming acquaintance – and both times it was the shock of hearing that undid me. It’s the sudden reversal of reality, the unreality of the statement “he is dead” when you saw him just a couple of days ago, that sounds a sour note.

Now there’s another. One of my best (and definitely my oldest) friends — my maid of honour at my wedding — lost her dad to a sudden heart attack last night. Completely out of the blue. I’ve known this man since I was thirteen. He’s jovial, educated, a musician. My parents’ age. Nowhere near the age you start preparing for maybe, just possibly, expecting to lose someone.

Or, he was.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s the is/was problem. It’s all so fresh, so new, that in your mind a person simultaneously exists and does not exist. You crumble little by little as you try to impose the new reality of the death upon the X years of life you’ve experienced with this person. On top of it all, the news about the death throws that person’s reality into sharp relief, making it harder to wrap your mind around the fact that they’ve died.

I heard someone say once that no parent should outlive a child. At the same time, though, I think that the most traumatic thing most children live through is losing their parents. How do you accept the loss of someone who birthed you, guided you, supported you, from day one?

When it’s someone else, you’re all at sea in a different way. Death hits us all pretty hard. Apart from coping yourself, and looking at your own family in a different light, there’s dealing with the bereaved. (Bereaved. What a word. Where does it come from? Riven? Be-riven? Bereft?) You love them desperately, and you want to express your own sorrow, but words just don’t cut it. Especially when someone is torn from you like that. When was the last time they spoke? Was it quick, superficial, both assuming they’d see one another again, that there would be a next time?

Death is part of the whole life experience, not a sudden stop, or an intrusion. It’s an essential part of the cycle. So many people fear it. I don’t think I do; it’s the loss of everyone else that I worry about. The change of pace, as it were. It’s the change that I’m uncertain of. Fear of the unknown, I suppose, which is understandable. We’re creatures of habit. Being Pagan means I accept that cycles continue and that existence transforms into another dimension, maybe this one over again if there’s more to learn, maybe another, maybe back to the beginning to grow young again in the underworld until my essence is prepared for a rebirth to do more good. None of that means I’ll go joyfully to my death – or accept anyone else’s death, family, husband, friends – easily. We all have to deal with loss. We grieve for ourselves, for others. Our freshly riven minds must heal. Our hearts must mend. Our tears must dry. I do still cry for my maternal grandfather each Easter, a gentle man who I knew for all of eleven or twelve years. However, I grieve for not knowing him better. Perhaps we grieve for lost chances, opportunities we’ll never have. So often we don’t rejoice in the good times, laugh at the joy the deceased brought. Death encompasses us all. It brings us freedom. However, at the same time, it cuts us off. Another dichotomy we can’t hold concurrently in our bruised minds.

Death means holding two truth simultaneously: the truth of the shining soul we knew, alive forever, in our hearts and elsewhere; and our crushing loss for which there are no words.

Go gently, Eric.